Long Time Coming
by IceyCold97
Summary: "You've changed." "That's what happens when you don't see someone for five years. Things change." Sequel for TOSREKFB. Contains OCs. INVASION timeline.


**Ch. 1 Running into Walls**

**Hi! So, remember when I said I was going to revise my other chapters before I did a sequel? I lied. Mostly because it got really hard to change anything, I blame my laziness.**

**Some people asked for a sequel so here it is: Beginning where the first episode of the second season ended.**

**Warnings: **

**Few parts of major OOCness, be warned.**

**I mention drugs in a small part, I take addiction very seriously and do not wish to offend anyone with the small mention of meth. DON'T DO DRUGS PEOPLE!**

**Now read :)**

It was supposed to be another simple Gamma mission, but with how the last 'simple Gamma mission' turned out, Tim couldn't say he was surprised with what happened. Okay, so he was a little surprised, but who could have expected this?

While Miss Martian, Beast Boy, Superboy , and Adam Strange were in Rann, Robin, Blue Beetle, and Lagoon Boy were charged with tracking down and apprehending a new and minor villain calling himself Fear. Which is how the three boys found themselves here: held at gunpoint, while Fear held a civilian hostage.

Okay so there's a story here, but in almost all tellings of this story in the future, it was all Blue's fault.

"Stupid heroes did you think the three of you could stop me? I am Fear, the weakness of humanity! I Am INVINCIBLE!" Fear shouted as he prepared to pull the trigger. Robin reached behind him, and grabbed a Batarang from his utility belt.

_No, _Tim thought to himself, the last Batarang, and it was the type that exploded. If he saved his team, he would kill the civilian… and possibly Fear, depending on what his powers actually were.

Tim couldn't be responsible for that, he was a hero, and he couldn't kill the people he protected. They'd have to make it out of here—somehow.

"Fear is your end heroes," to be honest, if Fear hadn't added that second gloat, he would had almost certainly have succeeded. Thank heaven for the egotistical villain syndrome.

A millimeter away from the trigger being pulled back enough to fire the gun, a dagger arched through the air and sliced Fear's right thumb in half. The man howled and clutched his right arm to his chest, subsequently dropping the gun and letting go of the hostage. But the maniac wasn't getting off that easy; before he had time to recover from the excruciating pain in his hand he was kicked, and then punched in the face hard enough to knock him unconscious.

The boys looked at each other to find out who had attacked Fear, but they were more than ten feet away, and not even Robin could move that fast.

"Dude," Blue said softly, looking over to where Fear lay on the ground, more specifically at the girl standing above him. A skin-tight purple and black Kevlar suit covered the girl's form, except for the midriff which was left exposed. Blue Beetle walked over to the girl who had her back to the three teenagers.

"Hey," he said with a flirty undertone, "So thanks for the save, could I get—"

"Are you stupid?" She growled as she spun around to face the blue teen, a masked set of eyes narrowing.

"No," Blue responded shocked, "No I'm not, shut up."

Ignoring Blue's talking to himself, the girl tuned her head to glare at Robin, "Next time, if you have a shot, take it. Otherwise you're going to get yourself, and your team, killed."

"But," Robin said looking at the girl who had been the hostage—who had upon seeing the man's thumb sliced in half promptly fainted, "she would have been killed."

"Then you have to choose whether you let a madman live for one girl, or kill them both and save his countless victims. You're supposed to be heroes, that means tuff decisions."

"Hey!" Lagoon Boy shouted at the girl, "We thank you for the assistance, but if you just want to shout at us, get lost. We have Nightwing to do that. Nightwing, oh man he's gonna kill us."

The girl shook her head and turned away, "I shouldn't have done this," she whispered to herself.

"We really do appreciate the help," Tim said walking over to the girl, "but why do you regret saving us? You're a hero." He told her putting a hand on her shoulder.

"No," she jerked her arm away, "I'm not."

"Hhhhnnnn," the hostage who had fainted groaned as she started to wake up. Robin rushed to her side as Blue and Lagoon stood above her. They all just ignored Fear.

"You know a hos...pit...tal…" Blue tailed off after seeing the girl was gone.

"Guess you scared her off, Blue," Robin joked. It did nothing to make the Boy Wonder feel better however, he hadn't even heard her move.

"R…robin?" the girl asked coming around.

"You're safe miss. Are you hurt?" Tim asked.

"No, I… I'm fine. Thank you for saving me," the girl blushed, "My name's Ariana."

"Hello Ariana," Robin stood up to face La'gaan and Blue, "can you guys get her to a hospital? Fear too, he's going to bleed out if we leave him here. I need to find out who that girl was."

"Got it," La'gaan assured him.

"Actually, I'd feel more comfortable—where did he go?" Ariana asked to the Robin-less room.

"I know, we hate it when he does that too," Blue assured her.

"Oh, God," Ariana said looking over at Fear and going very, very pale.

"Let's get you to a hospital," Blue said gently as her skin started to tinge green.

* * *

Tim was never as thankful for trackers as he was that moment. How the girl had gotten from Louisiana to NYC in less than five minutes, Robin had no idea, but he made even better time with the Zeta-Beam.

New York was exactly how Tim remembered it: dark, dingy, and had a scent in the air that made you scared you were about to get mugged… well this part of the city did. To keep it out of the everyday-passerby's way, the Zeta-Beam entrance was hidden in an abandoned subway tunnel in a less-pleasant part of the city. Which was fine with Robin, the signal he had put on the girl when he had touched her arm was coming from an area not too far from the subway.

Batman had taught Tim how to place a tracker in every conceivable way possible, and Tim was glad he had, otherwise he was sure he would never had found the girl.

The apartment complex were the signal was coming from looked only a few days away from being condemned, crumbling walls and the constant smell of mildew; the only good thing about the building was it was too old for security, so Tim had no problem breaking—investigating the lead.

According to the tracker, the girl was on the fifth—and top—floor of the building in apartment 5-C, so Tim snuck into the building via the top floor. Fortunately 5-C was the first apartment next to the window so it wasn't a far walk until Robin stood in front of the door. He glared at the door for a minute, if it was locked then he was going to have to pick the lock, kicking down the door would just leave a foot sized hole in the rotting wood and give the boy a few nasty splinters.

Time twisted the nob slowly, making sure no to make a sound. The door was surprisingly unlocked, and Robin snuck into the apartment without a sound. Before he could decide where to start searching for the girl, a small tracker the size of a dime slid across the floor, and stopped at Tim's feet.

"Next time you make a tracker, don't have it admit light every time it sends a signal," the girl said stoically.

Tim looked at her, she leaned against the wall opposite the door in the barren apartment the skintight black and purple Kevlar replaced with dark jeans and a black jacket, her eye were still covered with opaque black glasses. Robin half expected her to attack him, after all he was breaking in, but she simply stared at him with her arms crossed.

"It works well in the day, or with electricity," he joked, but he wasn't quite sure where he stood with this girl.

"If the electricity works around here then it means that a drug dealer is using the basement as a meth lab," she responded nonchalantly.

"Right," Robin responded slowly, how she could be so uncaring about a drug that had destroyed so many lives was beyond the hero. He decided to change the topic, "Thanks for the save tonight."

The girl simply inclined her head to the smallest degree where it was still eligible of a nod, though she looked like it caused her serious pain to even that small inclination. Tim swallowed, he never liked carrying the conversation and she was giving him _nothing_ to go on.

"You said you weren't a hero," another minuscule nod, "but I saw what you did, and the moves you used; you don't learn moves like that anywhere but Gotham." It was true the kick she had used to knock Fear out was a special move that Nightwing had taught him specifically after Tim had joined the team. "So at one point you were a hero."

"That, was a long time ago."

* * *

"Neptune's Beard!" La'gaan shouted suddenly. He and Blue had just dropped Ariana off at the hospital and Fear in the medical ward of Louisiana State Penitentiary where he awaited trial… once he woke up.

"What? What's going on?" Blue asked franticly, coming back to reality after daydreaming in the chair next to the Atlantean.

"Who does that eel think she is? Talking to us like that. We're heroes!" he growled, making the bioship nearly swerve into the side of a building with his outburst.

"Don't hold anything back now," the metal clad commented, the bioship took another drastic swerve, "uh, you want me to drive?"

"Evil Athena riddled wench," Lagoon Boy seethed. Looking back to where he was going he steered the bioship away from the bricks it had nearly hit.

"She was hot though, I mean sans the whole attitude thing; who doesn't love skin-tight purple and black Kevlar with a midriff?"

La'gaan made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat.

"Oh that's right, you have your 'angle-fish,'" Blue Beetle teased the other boy, "M'gann can probably shift into whatever type of girl you want, am I right?"

"Shut up."

* * *

"What do you mean?" Tim asked. _A long time ago,_ could mean anything.

"Exactly what I said, whatever lingering hero qualities you see in me were something that ended too long ago to ever be reopened," she responded.

"No one ever stops being a hero, there's always that drive inside you to fight for others. It's why you stopped Fear tonight," Tim told her.

"Maybe, but the days where I went around looking for trouble are long gone, there's enough trouble in the world, you don't have to look for it," she sighed. "Look _Robin,_" she choked on the name, "nothing I say will stop you from risking your neck, I know that firsthand, but just _try _not to get killed. The last thing this world needs is more children dying as heroes."

"I'm not a child," Tim snapped back.

"Yes you are," she countered, her voice raising a few octaves away from a yell, 'whatever you've experienced doesn't change the fact that you're still a kid with your whole life ahead of you."

"What about you? You're barely any older than I am," Robin argued, the girl couldn't be out of her teens.

"Don't let looks so easily fool you," she responded, "or you'll learn the hard way where deceit can hide."

When the girl walked out of the room into the crumbling kitchen, Tim didn't even try to stop her; he didn't want to, what she had said had seemed so cryptic and candid that Robin didn't want to hear what else she would say.

Unfortunately, Tim had been raised to be a detective and couldn't let her just walk away, he followed the direction the girl had taken into the kitchen.

"Can I at least get a name…" but Robin was asking an empty room. The girl was gone, and Tim still didn't know who she was, or who she used to be.

* * *

"You knew this was going to happen eventually," the redhead stated. A soft breeze of midnight air rippled the sheen of her ruby hair as it blew across the city rooftop.

"Of course I did, but I did everything I could to stop it," the brunette responded, showing no sign of cold despite the frigid atmosphere.

"No you didn't, that stunt you pulled tonight was the opposite of postponing."

"Damn hero complex."

"This has been a long time coming, lovely. Not even you can run from the past forever," Scarlet said, her black eyes deadly serious.

"I know," Cee replied looking down, "but I had to try."

TBC…

* * *

**Hehe, so obviously some things happened between TOSREKFB to now. I guess you'll just have to stick around and find out what. In related news: how was my impression of the YJ Invasion writer's style? I just skipped five years and started a whole new plot! Interesting aint it? :)**

**Fear will make a reappearance in case you were wondering. **

**Ok so I know that a boy trained by Batman would never just let the rude mystery girl treat him, or his team, like that but it was essential to the plot. Please forgive me T.T**

**Also not trying to bash New York, never been to NYC, but I've always wanted to go and it makes a great scapegoat for scary places I knowish about.**

_**IF YOU REVIEW**_**, you can skip the rest, it's pointless fangirl babble.**

**May I just say: LOVING YJ Invasion. Still a little 'where/what the heck are/happened to KF, Artemis, and Aqualad, but Nightwing and Tim, *fangirl squeal!* I do, however, have one complaint: NO FINGER-STIPES! I am so very upset with the costume designer.**

**Hope you enjoyed, I'm so happy people wanted a sequel! It makes me feel so loved! The sequel will be much shorter than TOSREKFB was, just to let you know.**

**If you have any questions PM me, or—even better—leave a review!**

**PLEASE REVIEW!**

**V**


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